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If you want a better memory, you'd better start having more sex

June 12, 2018

Image: Istock/wavebreakmedia

If you're forever forgetting where you put your keys or bank card, then there could be a simple solution: you need to spend more time having sex.

That's (sort of) the official recommendation of experts from the University of Wollongong in Australia, who carried out a study on memory and its relationship to intercourse and intimacy.

They looked at more than 6,000 adults, quizzing them on everything from diet and health to wellbeing and wealth - and, of course, how often they had sex. They also did a memory test as part of the research.

After two years, the participants were invited back to be asked the same questions and to do another memory test.

It was found that the more frequent the sexual activity participants enjoyed, including kissing and a strong emotional connection during intercourse, the better their performance on the cognitive tests.

Even more importantly, this link became stronger the older people got, according to the study published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour.

Unfortunately, the effect only worked for short-term memory rather than in the long term, so you can't just expect to get down and dirty every night and become a member of MENSA in time for Christmas.

However, perhaps the tactic might work if you've got something you want to memorise - and maybe you might just find it easier to remember that you left your keys in your going-out coat pocket for the millionth time.

This isn't the first time that sex has been linked to better brain function. In 2010, a study in PLOS One found that sexual activity can promote cell growth in the hippocampus, while research from Oxford and Coventry Universities last year showed it can improve verbal fluency, visual perception and a whole host of other skills thanks to the 'afterglow' of dopamine and oxytocin.

Add to that the fact we already know about sex helping out the immune system and you'll find we don't need telling twice to take our partners upstairs for an 'early night'.

Give it a try and see if you can feel like boffin over the next few weeks.